The list of top-tier tennis players opting out of this year’s Tokyo Olympics is growing. Rafa Nadal announced earlier this month that he wouldn’t be taking part; Roger Federer, meanwhile, has made it clear that he won’t make a decision until after Wimbledon. The latest high-profile tennis player to announce that they won’t be traveling to Tokyo is Serena Williams. And while Williams declined to go into details about why she won’t take part in the event, a number of observers believe the unique restrictions placed on athletes for this year’s Games are responsible.
Writing at the Los Angeles Times, Iliana Limón Romero explored Williams’s comments about the event in light of some of her earlier quotes on the Tokyo Olympics. At a news conference on Sunday morning, Williams addressed the question. “There’s a lot of reasons that I made my Olympic decision,” she said. “I don’t feel like going into them today. Maybe another day. Sorry.”
As Romero notes, Williams spoke about not wanting to be separated from her daughter, Olympia, for a prolonged period of time. For most Olympic Games, athletes have had few issues bringing family members with them. With concerns over the pandemic, however, that isn’t the case for this year’s event.
The IOC’s regulations this year are understandable, but so too are the frustrations of athletes who’d like to be in close proximity to their children. It’s created a difficult decision for a number of athletes to reckon with, putting many of them in an impossible position — and complicating the legacy of this year’s Olympics.
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